What is better a FX5700 128ram or a FX5600 256ram?

Marcoprz77 · Mar 17, 2004

Hey guys, I'm fixing to get a new graphic card, see I'm going to get them in a store here in my town, and there's a Daytona Geforce FX5600 with 256 on ram, and a Gigabyte Geforce FX5700 with 128 on ram, so I guess the 5700 is better but wich of the two is going to perform better, because of the ram diference? oh and the two cards cost almost the same (the 5700 is about 2 bucks more) I would really apreciate some help in here, thanks

cryo · Mar 17, 2004

Go for the 5700 128 Ram IMO....

Marcoprz77 · Mar 17, 2004

Thanks dude, so what about the brand gigabyte I know its a good brand when it comes to mainboards, but do they make good video cards?? anyone has one of em?

cryo · Mar 17, 2004

as for GigaByte MB's, I (and not only I) am not very pleased, but this is another story. They however make pretty good graphic cards. I personally have a Gigabyte Maya Radeon 9000Pro, and it worked very well (replaced lately with one of the last remaining Hercules 9800 Pro's 😉 )

so Gigabyte is OK. Also try Asus or MSI. Avoid Daytona (=Ino3D).

You will not see any difference at this level between a card with 128 MB and one with 256 MB. That is why I recommended 5700, because of the better core.

However, if you want to go for NVidia, check also the prices for 5900XT, they are probably not much higher than 5700, and the performance is better.

Marcoprz77 · Mar 17, 2004

thanks again dude, well I was thinking of getting a radeon 9600 pro but the 9600XT is like 45 bucks more than the fx5700 and I think the 9600pro is usually more expensive than the 9600xt right?, so like do you prefer those cards over a fx5700 or a 5900? well at least I know I'm going to improve a lot, lol I have a vodoo 3 right now

ChipDeath · Mar 17, 2004

No, the Pro should be cheaper than the XT, as the XT is the more recent card. For geforce cards, the 'XT' suffix indicates a slightly crippled lower performing version (e.g. 5900 is better than 5900XT), but for Radeon cards it's the opposite - XT means better (9800XT is the current Top-end card from Ati).

What is your budget? if you can find a 9600Pro then I'd suggest getting that instead. It's a better card than a 5600 or 5700. If you can stretch to a 9800Pro (you can find some good deals on them if you look around) then I'd recommend one of those.

---
Those of you who think you know everything are annoying to those of us who do.

Marcoprz77 · Mar 17, 2004

Well my budget, I dunno, around 200 I guess , I was going for the cheapest fx5600 at about 130 but I found out it kind of sucks. Well the price thing is, that I am from Mexico, and they're a lot more expensive here, like the cheapest I could find were this Fx5700 for 170 u.s. dlls. and the 9600xt is 216 dlls, 9800pro is 339 oh yeah I have to add 15% tax to those numbers, oh yeah somethin else, I have an athlon xp 2100+ with only 256 of 266mhz DDR ram, so are this cards going to work good , or do I need some more pc to enjoy them??, well thanks guys , you've been great

cryo · Mar 17, 2004

my advice, if you have 200USD to spend, try to find a 9800 Pro, this is how much they are in US, and I don't know if in Mexico they are a lot more. Hell, I'm from Europe and I payed 280 euro for my Herc 9800Pro (almost 300$ - and it was cheap!), so the prices may vary big. If not, go for a 9600 Pro (or XT, XT in Radeon means better, unlike in NVidida, where it means worse 😉 )

So, in short:
- Go for 9800Pro (or non Pro, but NOT SE!!) if you find them around 200$
- Go for 9600 Pro or XT (again, not SE!) if 9800 is too much
- Else, go for 5700 (ultra or no ultra) / 5900XT (edit: i originally wrote 5800, try to avoid them)

Always go for the 128 MB variant (besides being more expensive, some times the 256MB versions are actually slower, if you don't play in resolutions like 1600x1200 etc)

Just my 2 cents

Edited by cryo on 03/17/04 05:30 AM.

baldurga · Mar 17, 2004

Another option:

Do you have a friend in USA? Buy the GPU at any USA online retailes (like newegg) and send it to him. Visit in a week and you will have your 9800Pro for $200 waiting for you

A little more complicated, but worth in my opinion. I have done the same and I am European!

Still looking for a good online retailer in Spain :frown:

ChipDeath · Mar 17, 2004

your PC specs aren't so bad that they'd seriously bottleneck the card, although another 256Mb of RAM would make a large difference in more recent games, especially if you're running Windows XP.

If you have any friends in the US you could do what someone above suggested, but if not see if you can find a 9600Pro card. If the 9600XT is $216 then the Pro should be a bit cheaper, and with some easy tweaking will give the same performance as the XT version.

---
Those of you who think you know everything are annoying to those of us who do.

cleeve · Mar 17, 2004

Like the men said, the amount of RAM does nothing for video card performance.

The 5700 will kick a 5200's ass to hell & back even if the 5200 had 1 gig of ram.

________________
Radeon 9500 PRO (hardmodded 9500, o/c 322/322)
AthlonXP ~2600+ (o/c 2400+ w/143Mhz fsb)
3dMark03: 4,055

TheGreatGrapeApe · Mar 17, 2004

In addition to the others' statements;

The R9600Pro is usually much cheaper than the R9600XT, and I would be surprised if you found it for more (or even much more) than the FX5700, yet the R9600Pro will outperform it by a long shot. The FX5700U is significantly more powerful than the FX5700 so it's not a small difference like the PRO to the XT on the Radeon side.

As Cleeve says ram makes little difference except for in VERY select situations, and really the low bandwidth of the FX5700 doesn't allow it to even access that large memory fast enough to exploit those situations. On average the FX5700 actually outperforms the original FX5600Ultra Rev.1 let alone the FX5600non-ultra. The FX5700 has 3 vertex engines whichy gives it a good boost over the FX5600's 2.

I would still suggest the R9600Pro as it should be in your price range, but perhaps there's some weird exchange rates and pricing schemes involved we don't know about.

- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp (or internet account) ! - RED GREEN GA to SK :evil:

Spitfire_x86 · Mar 17, 2004

FX5700 is better, but Radeon 9600 Pro/XT is the best card for your budget.

And remember, 256 MB VRAM is completely useless with current graphics cards/games.

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Marcoprz77 · Mar 18, 2004

mm cool you're the first one in this thread that says that the fx5700 is better than the 9600, mm thanks guys for the advice, and I did find some dude that can get the card in the us for me, but now that Im thinking about doing that, would you guys trust on getting a gpu on ebay?

cryo · Mar 18, 2004

i really think he was reffering to 5700 being better than 5600... i doubt he wanted to say that 5700 was better than 9600 Pro / XT.
Again, I don't know what the man wanted to say, but this is my guess...

"I cannot give you a brain, but I can give you a diploma"
- The Wizard of Oz, talking to the Scarecrow

TheGreatGrapeApe · Mar 18, 2004

I don't think that was actually what Spitfire was saying.

The FX5700 CAN be better than the R9600 in some situations, but it depends on the application and settings (res., AA/AF).

E-bay is ok, but no guarantee/warantee, so don't be surprised by surprises.

You best bet for something not brand spanking new is still the R9600Pro, it's far better than the FX5700 (and often even the FX5700Ultra), and is almost always at least as expensive as the FX5700non-ultra. Even an R9600Pro-lite would be better than an FX5700non-ultra.

- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp (or internet account) ! - RED GREEN GA to SK :evil:

Spitfire_x86 · Mar 18, 2004

Even an R9600Pro-lite would be better than an FX5700non-ultra.

What's R9600 "Pro-Lite"?

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cleeve · Mar 18, 2004

I believe it's a powercolor version of the 9600 PRO with the GPU running at the proper speed and the memory running much slower than a true PRO's (like 200 Mhz?)

________________
Radeon 9500 PRO (hardmodded 9500, o/c 322/322)
AthlonXP ~2600+ (o/c 2400+ w/143Mhz fsb)
3dMark03: 4,055

TheGreatGrapeApe · Mar 19, 2004

Exactly as Cleeve says. Powercrapper and Gag-n-puke (aka Powercolor and GigaCube) have versions that run out of the normal spec. Most of these wannabe PROs are as cleeve says, running PRO cores with non-pro memory/memory speeds. The Pro-Lite I think is only Gag-n-puke's name for them, but PC does have a similar thing out there.

Here's a review of the initial Gag-n-pukes and a list of their cards, the "Radeon 9600PROD3-Lite" would be the one I'm talking about.

<A HREF="http://www.overclockers.co.nz/ocnz/review.php?id=03vga00r9600progigacube9600lite0104" target="_new">http://www.overclockers.co.nz/ocnz/review.php?id=03vga00r9600progigacube9600lite0104</A>

- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp (or internet account) ! - RED GREEN GA to SK :evil:

Marcoprz77 · Mar 19, 2004

Hey guys, you have been great for all the help, so far I think I'm getting the 9800 pro, but I have two more questions:

1) My mainboard is not like a great one its a Biostar M7VIP with a VIAKT333 and it has an agp 4X slot, so like is this very bad? the agp not being 8x, like how much is it going to reduce the performance of the radeon or some other video card?,

2)I have a generic 350W power source , do I need a good one to feed up the radeon 9800?, I have 2hdd conected, the cd-rom drive and well the floppy, and I plan on getting a cd writer, so should I consider buying a new power source too?

cryo · Mar 19, 2004

1. Your MB should be OK, I think... don't worry about AGP4x, you can still use the Radeon 9800Pro, and the performance loss will be minimal (if any). I don't know of any cards which are AGP8x only... they work also with AGP4x. This is not always valid for 2x and 1x though.

2. My personal opinion is that it will hold, if the real power is 350W. In case not, you will notice, and get a new one, but in my opinion, wait and see if it works... in the worst case, you will have to unplug one of your hard drives / cd-rom until you get a new PS.

"I cannot give you a brain, but I can give you a diploma"
- The Wizard of Oz, talking to the Scarecrow

TheGreatGrapeApe · Mar 19, 2004

Getting a good power supply is a good idea, but you may be ok. The thing is a generic 350W just isn't as 'guaranteed to be 350W, as one from Enermax, Antec or PCPower&Cooling (Fortron).

The only way to know for sure is to see what happens. You may have bought a GOOD generic power supply or got one that can't ahndle 70% of it's rating. It's hard to tell without doing alot of work (at which point I'd just plonk the $50 for a new quality PSU).

You should be ok initially, but once you have everything in that rig, you may find some hiccuping.

And yes, 8X vs 4X is very minimal in difference, and definitely NOT worth replacing your motherboard. Wait until you NEED a new motherboard as the difference in performance would be like 5% at the BEST of times, and almost 99.44% of the time you will see NO differnce in performance between the two.

- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp (or internet account) ! - RED GREEN GA to SK :evil:

What is better a FX5700 128ram or a FX5600 256ram?

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